Survey: “Oprah Factor” Working for Obama

Amid the endless “Does Oprah’s Endorsement Matter?” stories (NO!) comes a missive Thursday that yes, the blessing from The Big O indeed boosted the fortunes of The Little O.

Our good friends at The Pew Weekly News Interest Index say “Oprah Winfrey’s well-publicized appearances with Barack Obama have raised Obama’s visibility, especially among African Americans.” This branch of the Pew family spits out weekly reports monitoring what news stories Americans are most closely following.

“Roughly a quarter of Americans (26 percent) say they have heard more about Obama recently than any other presidential candidate, up from just 10 percent in November,” say the Pews. “Meanwhile, though Hillary Clinton remains the most visible candidate overall, the proportion citing her as the candidate they have heard the most about fell from a high of 61 percent in November to 41 percent in the current poll.”

The Pews say that “Obama’s increased visibility is no doubt linked to his campaign appearances with Winfrey. Fully 74 percent of the public could correctly identify Obama as the candidate Oprah had endorsed.”

As for our GOP pals, well, the Pewsters found that while most Americans surveyed said he thought a good job giving his speech on religion and politics, Mitt Romney was named by just 5 percent as the candidate they heard the most about. Mike Huckabee is the pollsters new buzz boy, but just 5 percent name him as the candidate they have heard the most about.

And lest you think that most of the country has started caring about who the next person to lead the country will be, guess what Pew found to be the mostly closely followed news story of the week: Yup, the shooting spree at a mall in Omaha, Nebraska.